The Wake up Call: Waste management

Rtr. Dilhan Jayasinghe 

The waste produced due to polythene and plastics can be mentioned as the main harmful type as degradation is very slow. As a result, scientists are in search for different waste disposal methods. But the question is whether the current advances have the ability to mitigate the issues at least up to a sufficient and sustainable level? 

Actually, in a waste management system, waste disposal is the last step we should look at, when dealing with wastes. But, before discussing the first few steps, it is vital to understand the status of current waste disposal methods. 

A major type of waste disposal technique is the Land filling. This is the least favoured technique. The other major technique is the waste incineration. Land filling has created many issues and they were too severe in our country. A tragic incident occurred as a landfill toppled in Meethotamulle in Colombo, costing more than 25 deaths and millions of rupees were lost due to the disaster. This was the second typical landfill topple in the world. Also, methane like gases are produced, which is a greenhouse gas and we have identified the impact of those gases to the atmosphere. Also, different pathogenic problems are caused due to landfills. As a whole, landfills cause many issues related to health as well as increasing global/ social issues. 

The second method is the incineration, which is fairly costly relative to other methods. The formation of a lot of heat and the power requirement to operate the plants are also not economically favourable. Harmful gases can also be formed due to the burning of polymers and these lead to health issues and other environmental problems. 

Apart from all these pros and cons, people have failed to mitigate the waste problems and oceans are severely polluted. There is a waste patch in the Pacific-ocean which is fairly large. All these issues have been caused by non degradable wastes, mainly synthetic substances. Even after the Covid 19 virus, people have not still learnt the lesson. There had been thousands of disposable masks disposed to the sea and these are left to be trouble makers for fish and marine living beings. If we can determine other ways of minimizing the disposal of wastes in this manner, it is greatly appreciated. But there are practical limitations up to a greater extent. 

Hence it is vital to reduce the manufacture of wastes rather than trying to dispose of them since all present disposal techniques have disadvantages. Let us see how we can contribute to sustainability by reducing the generation of wastes in the next article.